


Love Hurts More than it Heals

by Lady In A Tux (CollateralDamage666)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel Centered, Castiel's POV, F/M, Hurt Castiel, Minor Character Death, Possessed OFC, Suicide, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-17
Updated: 2013-03-17
Packaged: 2017-12-05 13:44:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/723942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CollateralDamage666/pseuds/Lady%20In%20A%20Tux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the prompt: "I want a one shot about Castiel falling in love with a human girl."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Hurts More than it Heals

**Author's Note:**

> I hope I did the prompt justice.  
> I was going to end it happy.  
> But I'm Satan incarnate so that obviously wasn't going to work out.

Her name was Erica.

She was possessed by a demon, a cruel twisted being whose face seemed to taunt him from behind the mask it wore of the girl’s face.  Castiel could see her, too, cowering in the shadow of the beast, lost and afraid.  He watched over her and when the demon would leave her momentarily to possess someone else to achieve their goal, he would talk to the human, try to calm her down and learn all he could.  Sometimes he couldn’t get her to concentrate on his questions, she would babble on about her family, her classes in college, gossip amongst her friends.  She had an older brother and an absent father, had gotten into college on a scholarship, worked late hours at her job to keep in school, now in her last year, and had wanted to be a doctor one day.  The search for her had only gone on for 6 months before it dwindled off in favor of someone else that disappeared from the same area as her: a younger boy.

So he kept an eye on her.  He wasn’t allowed to touch or help her escape; orders from higher up.  She was like something kept behind a sheet of glass.  He could hear her, see her, but he couldn’t reach out and touch her.  He was helpless by her side but he did all he could.  She prayed and he listened, often having a faraway look in his eyes when he was with his superiors or the Winchesters.  And then there was his rebellion, the war, the chaos, the apocalypse, Purgatory.  And during it all, he lost her.  She stopped praying and went silent, her voice disappearing along with her body, the demon still using it like nothing but a meat suit to be used and thrown away once it got worn at the edges.  Luckily, it hadn’t gotten to that time yet, the last he saw of them.  The demon had kept the body in quite nice condition; trying to blend in as well as she could, like a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

“We have to kill the demon and grab the tablet.”

The Winchesters had his full attention now.  Even Naomi could wait.  He stood, watching the brothers just out of their field of vision, just as he had done before when working with Crowley.  He felt guilty for pulling that trick again, but he quickly shooed it away.  This.  This right here was actually for the best.  Just not for the Winchesters this time around.  It was for the girl and only the girl.  And maybe a bit for himself.  It was about time he had a little for himself after all he had done.  At least, that’s how he tried to reason it to himself.  The Winchesters were going after a demon, his demon, and were just going to make quick work of her like all the others.  Stick a knife into her ribs and listen to her squeal.  And all for what?  A tablet that closed the gates of Hell.

Castiel was all for it, don’t get him wrong, but there had to be another way to get there.  Another way that didn’t result in this body being stabbed as if she was no one, just some possessed human a city over.  She was someone to Castiel.  Someone important.  He wondered if this is what the humans called a “crush.”  Or maybe it was something a little more than that?  On any other day, he would come out of hiding at this moment, pretend to just have fluttered in, finally responding to one of Dean’s endless, crushing prayers he sent every night, every day, every time Sam was out of earshot.  He had hurt the elder brother, he understood that.  And he would make it up to him.  Someday.  If he could.  Maybe after Naomi.  If he survived.  If he came out on the other end still Cas.  He doubted he would.  He was changing already; he could feel it in his very being, like poison spreading through his grace.

And now the demon had one of the tablets the Winchesters were so keen on getting their hands on.  He wondered if he could convince them to take a more kind approach, perhaps exorcise her instead of killing her.  Dean was too hardheaded for that, though, and this tablet was something they were not going to let slip away in fear of it reaching the wrong hands.  Castiel would have to take matters into his own hands, so when they got in the impala, he was in the back seat, back straight, shoulders set back.  He forgot for a moment that at the level of disguise he had up now, he was still reflected in a mirror, but quickly fixed that fact when Dean adjusted the rearview mirror and caught a glimpse of Castiel looking right at it.  He tensed as if lighting struck him and turned to look in the backseat for any sign of the angel.  Of course, he couldn’t see him, his eyes going right over where he was sitting.  And when Sam asked him what it was, Dean answered before turning and readjusting himself.

“It’s nothing.”

He looked so sad when he said those words.

It was straightforward from there.  Castiel sat back and listened to their plan.  Originally he had planned on just flying over to where the demon was holding herself up, taking the tablet, scaring off the demon, leaving the tablet somewhere where they Winchesters would see it (a parting gift), and… he hadn’t thought much past that.  He wasn’t even sure how the girl would react upon seeing him again after so long.  Would she be angry that he hadn’t saved her sooner?  But he hadn’t been able to.  He had orders.  He had been different then.  Surely she would… It was no use thinking anymore.  He slouched down further in his seat.  Where she was being held had a angel ward on it dug into the ground all around it.  Somehow he would have to damage it before he could get in.  He hoped he could get the Winchesters to do it for him.  Without making his presence known.  He had his work cut out for him.

In the end, he had nothing to worry about.  The brothers didn’t even notice the mark, just drove over it and parked on it.  Consider it broken.  He fluttered out, into the house.  The Winchester’s weren’t far behind, busting down the door, knives and holy water at the ready.  She was ready, too, had been expecting their arrival since word had gotten around that she had the tablet and was hunkering down with it.  She smiled as they entered the same room as her, the tablet behind her.  Castiel stayed out of sight still, invisible to all, not of his grace floating out to alert the demon of his presence.  He moved quickly, past her to the tablet.  If this was what the Winchesters came for, he would get it for them and get them out of the area.

“Spare my life and I’ll hand over the tablet.”

Castiel looked up.  The demon wanted to bargain.  He would allow it.

“Yeah, honey, we don’t work that way.”

Dean.  Of course.  Castiel frowned.

“The girl inside of me is still alive.  Stick me and you kill her.  She’s got a whole big future ahead of her and you selfish pigs are going to take it away from her.”  She was backing up toward the tablet.  He moved closer to it.

Dean moved forward.  “Actually, I think you’ll find you’ve already taken it away from her.  She’d be happy to have you killed.”  He ran forward, her arm shot out to grab the tablet and that’s when Castiel fluttered into vision, grabbing the tablet and holding it to his chest.  Dean stopped.  Sam’s eyes flickered between his brother in the angel.  The demon gawked.  It was silent for a while before he heard a broken “Cas?” from Dean and the demon finally found her voice again.

“You- how did you get in?”

“They drove right over the ward without even seeing it.  Now, if you’d please-“

He didn’t even have to finish his sentence; she was already tipping her head back and releasing herself from the body with a scream.  He let her go, he would deal with the demon later.  The girl was his top priority.  He flung the tablet toward the brothers – getting a “whoa, easy man” from Dean – and dived for the girl as she began to waver where she stood.  He caught her easily and pulled her to his chest, brushing her hair out of her face.  For a moment, he was terrified that her heart wasn’t beating, her lungs not drawing in air, but then they did, a whoosh of oxygen through her body that sent relief through his own.  The brothers were closer now, but he wanted them gone for once.  He didn’t want them here to see him.  He was weak and he was going to fail them and everyone else.  He didn’t want them to see him as a failure again.

Her eyes fluttered open and she looked up at Castiel.  It took a moment for recognition to come forth, but when it did, anger flared forward with it.  She wiggled out of his arms, even when he reached forward, fingers brushing against her back as she moved away.  He was broken, his mask was missing, and the Winchesters could see it all.  He swallowed heavily, eyes darting between the three of them.

“You promised me you would help me!”

She was crying and he felt close to tears himself.  He didn’t like this.  He never should have become more human.  It hurt.

“I did just now.  I chased away the demon.”

“And where were you all those years ago when you first showed up?”

“I couldn’t touch you.  I couldn’t help you. I had orders.”

“Oh, please.  Yet you had the time to talk to me?  I prayed to you.”

The words were so familiar it physically hurt.

“But you stopped and I couldn’t find you.”

“Don’t pin this on me.  Don’t even try-“

Dean was going to get whiplash, looking back and forth between them, and Castiel could feel something gnawing away at him from the inside.  So Castiel did the only thing he knew how at the moment.  “I’m sorry.”  And he fluttered away.

He never saw her again after that.  Sure, he looked around her room when she was out – she had moved back in with her parents for the time being – but he never saw her face to face.  He didn’t know what story she cooked up, but seeing as to how she wasn’t in a mental institution, it had to be a sound one, possibly with a little help from the Winchesters.  He hadn’t seen them in a few weeks, though Dean kept praying to him, more constant now, even silently in his head as the brothers drove down a road together, collecting tablets to close hell.  And Castiel was stuck doing Naomi’s dirty work.  Five months later, he got a message from Dean about an article he saw in the newspaper.  The girl had overdosed on pills, the trauma of her kidnapping too much to bear, it had written.  Dean asked if he was okay.  Castiel didn’t reply.

Her name was Erica.

**Author's Note:**

> Unbetaed.


End file.
